"A Run at Love" by Toni Shiloh

Even though this is my first time reading a book by Toni Shiloh, I think I'm going to start a new tradition of reading one of her books the week of Valentine's Day every year.  (But also here and there in between when I feel like reading some really good, romantic Christian fiction.)  I had such a great time with A Run at Love -- due in no small part to the book revolving around horses, but also because Shiloh balanced the character development and the pacing and the plot so well.  

I've mentioned before that I don't care for romance-driven plots, but I do love plot-driven romances.  This was the latter, and I really enjoyed it.  Even though it's the second book in a trilogy, and I have not read the previous book, I never felt lost.  So well done!  I'm looking forward to finding the other two books!

In A Run at Love, Piper McKinney is battling her worries over breaking away from her parents' very successful and high-profile stables to start her own racing stable.  She's also dealing with a lot of stress from always feeling like she's in a spotlight because she's one of the few African-American racing stable owners.  Not to mention, she was adopted from Africa when she was a toddler... by a white couple living in a small Kentucky town that is pretty much entirely populated by white people.  Piper isn't insecure about her race, knowing her true worth comes from being a child of God... but sometimes she worries that people are paying more attention to the color of her skin than to her potential-champion race horse, Dream.

Piper's also battling her attraction to her best friend, Tucker Hale.  What she doesn't know is, Tucker is also expending extreme energy battling his own attraction to her!  And just when I was beginning to think, "Please don't let this author spin this unrequited love thing out any longer!" they admitted their feelings, and spent the rest of the book as a couple.  Whew.  

Piper buys Dream as a colt and hires Tucker to train him hoping they can enter Dream in the Kentucky Derby.  They win some races.  They lose some races.  And then a huge scandal erupts around Piper's parents' racing stables, and not only is Piper's future in horseracing in jeopardy, but her future with Tucker might be too.  Together, they need to rely on God to help them survive and even thrive in the midst of so much chaos.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for lots of swoony kisses and flirting and hand-holding, but nothing more.  Piper and Tucker were both committed to never getting into a situation where they could be tempted to "anticipate their wedding vows," as the Victorians would put it.  No cussing, no violence, but some discussions of sick horses needing to be euthanized that could be problematic for sensitive or young readers.